Holding the lotus to the rock : the autobiography of Sokei-an, America's first Zen master / edited by Michael Hotz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sasaki, Shigetsu, 1882-1945.

Contributor:

Hotz, Michael.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sasaki, Shigetsu, 1882-1945.

Sasaki, Shigetsu.

Zen priests--Japan--Biography.

Zen priests.

Japan.

Zen priests--United States--Biography.

United States.

Sasaki, Sokei-an.

Local Subjects:

Sasaki, Sokei-an.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

v, 265 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Other Title:

Autobiography of Sokei-an, America's first Zen master

Place of Publication:

New York : Four Walls Eight Windows, [2003]

Summary:

Sokei-an Sasaki (1882-1945), in many respects, was the original Dharma Bum: a sculptor, poet, Zen student, and journalist, whose favorite subject was America. He arrived in San Francisco in 1906 with the mission of bringing Zen to America. After his teacher returned to Japan in 1910, he wandered alone through the American West and lived a wild bohemian life in the Greenwich Village of the Roaring '20s. His accounts of his childhood in Meiji, Japan, his struggle to transform himself through Zen, his experiences teaching Zen to New Yorkers -- which led to the founding of the First Zen Institute of America -- his run-in with the FBI, and his internment on Ellis Island are all conveyed with charm and humor.

Contents:

I Was a Dreamer When I Was a Child 23

When My Father Died 35

I Think There Is Someone Living in My Attic 41

This Very Mind Is the Seat of Zen Practice 51

Carve Me a Buddha 59

Peeling the Skin from My Eye 69

San Francisco, Medford, Seattle 85

Living Over an Abyss 105

Awakening Is My Teacher 117

Footsteps in the Invisible World 131

Seventieth Street Stories 149

Fishing with a Straight Hook 165

Cat's Yawn 183

Your Uncle's Doghouse 197

This Life Is Life after Death 211.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-264).

ISBN:

156858248X

OCLC:

51203880